3D Projector Guide

Recently, LG in the UK announced their new 3D projector, the CF3D which they claim is, “the world’s only polarized glasses 3D projector capable of transmitting full HD picture through a single lens“.

I don’t know about you, but when I first heard about 3DTV’s, I was hoping that projectors would be hard on their heels to get that true 3D-cinema experience into my house. Here at 3DTVreviewer, we even mentioned the CF3D back at the beginning of March, we were that keen!

3D Projection: Technical Hurdles

When I was checking into the possibility of 3D home cinema projectors, I read about all sorts of technical hurdles that face projectors trying to get 3D onto a projector screen, not least of which is that they effectively have to throw two images at the same time, one for the left eye and one for the right eye, which cuts the brightness significantly. One guy who reviewed the CF3D said, “In 3D it still managed a reasonably bright image at 92″ diagonal“, but also said, “Brightness is a definite issue, which means manufacturers have to recognize that 3D projectors as a group are going to need to have about twice the raw lumens available as traditonal projectors.”

Some sources even talk about having two projectors at home, each flinging an image for each eyeball at the screen, to compensate for the loss of brightness. If that’s anything like an indication of the amount of light being lost in a 3D projector-system, it’s a bad sign.

Also, you may need a “high gain” silver screen to project your images onto, to maximising the light reflected and because regular white screens lose the polarisation of the light as it’s reflected.

Cinema 3D Projection

If brightness is such an issue in the home setting, why isn’t it an issue at the cinema. After all, the RealD system, which is how most people experience 3D at the cinema, isn’t noticably darker when wearing the glasses, and they only use one projector in the RealD system which utilises the same polarisation effect to render stereoscopic images as the LG projector will in your home. Perhaps it all comes down to compensation by your brain. After all, if you close one eye, the world doesn’t appear half as bright using just the other eye to see, does it?